


Sudden Light

by PudentillaMcMoany



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, M/M, Reincarnation, Twenties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 17:20:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8169784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PudentillaMcMoany/pseuds/PudentillaMcMoany
Summary: It's a beautiful afternoon in Bloomsbury, and all of a sudden Childermass remembers.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the homonymous poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti which I can't link to you but I promise is a Good One.

Bloomsbury is green and blue, all terse light dappling the pavement, speckled with grey from a sudden flurry of wings; pigeons should not tally with the solemn quiet of the early afternoon, are prosaic creatures at heart, and yet they do, and isn’t that one of the small miracles of the day along with the light, with the square and the leaves on the ground, their orange not quite orange but saffron, alike but not identical to the coat on the lady who passes him by, he almost runs into her, says _excuse me_ , which comes out with a puff of air not of smoke but of cold air against warm breath; and yet he thinks of smoke, and he lights up a cigarette because why not, _why not_ , the day is crisp and he feels strangely at peace.

He chooses a bench overlooking the water fountain, with a good view on the pigeons and the leaves, which all fly around when a child cuts through them running after a circle of metal which she spins with the stick in her hand, tails of her coat engulfed by a cool autumn wind that feels, against the hot sun, as if it comes from the sea.

John arrives, like he said that he would, at a quarter past two; he is punctual and panting, wearing an ancient blue hat that goes well with his old eyes, with the grey in his hair and the grey of his coat- smiles at him, but Childermass does not smile back, cannot find it in him, the quiet of the afternoon broken by a nervous surge in his heart, a trembling of his soul not unlike hope, oh, but how John can shatter him with a smile. So he doesn’t smile back, but he stubs his cigarette, and he gets up to shake John’s hand and they sit down again, and John says beautiful day, isn’t it, and Childermass agrees, although he feels in his soul that it is not quite so anymore, in that John complicates things;  in that the day, once he is at his side, cannot be quite so simply described as _beautiful_ , becomes almost painful, how there’s a sense of sacredness in everything- and Childermass has never been religious, but he looks religiously as John folds his legs, and then at the curve of John’s ankle, grey-cotton cheap sock with the elastic gone loose, inelegant, _beautiful_ , maybe, after all. And John turns his neck, which is very white in the light with his scarf discarded (he gets warm if he exerts himself, even in the short span of a walk, how can a man not worry about him, when even the walk from the publishing house to the square, two minutes at best...), and John says, isn’t that a swallow?

Childermass does not see the rare autumnal swallow, does not care either, because with his head bent just so, with the sun in his hair (the hat has been discarded too), John reminds him of something that he hasn’t quite forgotten. It’s his scent and his bent back; in the tight knot of his hands. Childermass suddenly wants to hold him by the shoulders and ask him do I not know you?; which is preposterous of course, because he does know John, but it’s different, this way in which he knows that he knows him, and he wants to ask: was I not once the dog at your feet, your husband, or perhaps your wife? And have I not been your mother, your brother, the warrior at your side? Haven’t I loved you before, like I do now, although not quite, but with the same urgency; have I not died for you, was I not glad? Were we once not magicians, you and I, walking Bloomsbury arm in arm like we do now, except we’re sitting, but we will, in a while, stand up and have a stroll, just not right now (it’s a beautiful day, you’re right, you’re always right). And he wants to ask John other things, he is about to, but John brushes a hand on his hand, and the thought is gone, just like that. The square however stays, and the afternoon remains beautiful and John remains heartrending, and was there not a bookshop around the corner that you wanted to visit?, Childermass asks instead, and he offers his arm and he says: let me take you.


End file.
